Industrial plant monitoring systems include conventional systems based on repairing defective equipment, time-based equipment maintenance systems, and also systems that continuously run a plan-do-check-act cycle such as the InsightSuiteAE (ISAE) services solution provided by Yokogawa Electric Corporation, which includes a diagnostics module for providing equipment performance information to users. The diagnostics module typically comprises a number of diagnostics, each diagnostic being configured to provide specific information about particular pieces of equipment or groups of equipment in the industrial plant to users of the diagnostics module.
An exemplary screen shot of a display on a client machine shown to a user by an example of such a diagnostics module is shown in FIG. 1 (prior art). The display is in the form of a window 100 shown on a monitor of the client machine. A first panel 110 in the left side of the window 100 shows a list 112 of pieces of equipment or devices 102, 103, 104. Each device 102, 103, 104 is selectable by use of a pointer controlled by a user-operated input device such as a mouse or keyboard. Diagnostics information of a selected device 102 is shown in a second panel 120 in the right side of the window 100. The second panel 120 may display the diagnostics information in a plurality of tabs 122, 123, 124, the number of tabs depending on the amount of information that is to be displayed. In each tab 122, 123, 124, information about the selected device 102 may be displayed in various forms. For example, an upper left area 131 in a tab 122 may show numerical values of parameters associated with the selected device 102, while an upper right area 132 may provide a visual representation of the parameter values in the form of bar charts. A lower area 133 may show historical data for the selected device 102 in the form of a trend chart.
What and how information is displayed by the diagnostics module in the window 100 is configured by programmers of the systems provider (for example progammers of Yokogawa Electric Corporation) who implement the diagnostics module for end users. Accordingly, whenever changes to the display are required, such as when the devices to be monitored are changed, added or removed, or when the information to be displayed is changed, the programmers are tasked to provide a new release of the diagnostics module in order to meet the changed needs of the users. This can be a slow and inconvenient process, resulting in periods where equipment monitoring and diagnostics is sub-optimal whenever there has to be a wait for a new release of the diagnostics module to be ready, that incorporates the necessary modifications configured by the programmers.